"Talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl."

 

“Talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl.”

That, and other insults, cost Koh Lee Yen, 50, and Chee Kam Fah, 49, $3000 a piece each. 

On 21 September last year, they were caught smoking outside Lucky Plaza shopping mall in Orchard Road. Ms Asyikah Suri Kamsari was on duty that day and authorised under National Environment Agency “to carry out enforcement action against public health offenders.” And Koh and Chee were then smoking outside designated places. 

In court yesterday, they were fined for verbal abuses hurled at Ms Asyikah, which was prolonged and calculated to “insult and degrade.” 

She was merely doing her job, said state prosecuting officer Nasri Haron. 

It reports, ““Chee also used vulgar word, while Koh additionally scolded the officer in Mandarin and Cantonese. Chee then waved a S$1,000 note at the victim, as Koh said: “You should just shut up and take the money.”” 

All that was captured on Ms Asyikah’s body-worn camera. And I perceive it as something more than just a bribe of $1000. It was a grossly demeaning gesture, equivalent to telling the victim that in her poverty, she ought to be desperate for whatever crumbs that fall from the rich’s banquet table. She should just take the money and be grateful. 

To me, it went beyond a bribe, to a stinging stigma that those less well off have to bear often from those who are rich with an attitude. 

And that’s not all...

While Ms Asyikah was recording their details, they demeaned her with these words, “your salary how much, one thousand only one month I think” and “crazy girl, better go back and hug your pillow and cry, your salary not enough for me to buy a pillow...”

Lesson? Just one.

I guess at times, we all need to hug our pillow and cry, for poverty can sadly push us into a corner of despair. And in a society of high inequality, where the cost of living is one of the highest, trying to make ends meet can be very difficult for a lot of people, especially during the pandemic. Like climate change, those living in the lower rung of society will be hit the hardest when the tide of poverty rushes in and flood those living in shallow lands. 

But, what makes living together unnecessarily unbearable is how some rich people ostentatiously rub that in their faces. Honestly, like it or not, we live in a society that Chee and Koh had described relatively accurately, “talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl.” 

Unfortunately, we are far from a classless society. And we often judge a book by its cover, especially when it is a glittering one. Preferential treatment is often subtle and unspoken, and willingly offered. 

It also reports that Koh and Chee “are shareholders and directors of jewellery retailer Gold Star Resources. They also hold shares in other companies, and Chee is a director in various firms.”

So, yes, they are reportedly richer in material wealth than many people, and I would give them a gold star for entrepreneurship. Give credit where credit is due right? 

And I suspect paying that $3000 each is like water off a duck’s back for them. It’s merely a slap on their wrists. Alas, at times, punishing the rich with monetary sanction is like throwing a fish you caught back into water. They just swimmingly return back to their natural hubristic habitat. 

In their defence, Koh and Chee said that they were stressed at the time. And they “were (also) upset that Ms Asyikah let two men go despite catching them for a similar act of smoking outside a designated area.” 

To that, the judge said, “it was a different matter from using insulting words on the officer.” And “being stressed was not an excuse for the women to verbally abuse the victim.” 

Be that as it may, the actions and words of Koh and Chee is a microcosm of how inequality can stir the hornet’s nest and brew a social storm in our society. Revolutions are fought on such matters of inequality brought to the extreme by want of thought and action. And the insensitivity adds up, resulting in a collective social reaction to denounce and overthrow. 

Let me end on a quote by Adam Smith for your thought. 

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

Sometimes, we unwittingly conspire with the rich to oppress the poor because we sacrifice virtues of enduring character, courage and strength in blind servitude to fame, power and wealth. That is the beginning of our descent to moral corruption; most times, unknowingly.